St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-08-06
HEAVENS WORK.
HOW THE SAVED ARE EMPLOYED
IN THE BETTER WORLD.

HOW THE SAVED ARE EMPLOYED
IN THE BETTER WORLD.
DR.. Ta1mage Thinks Each One Will Have
Occupation There Suited to His Tenn
permanent and Tastes-The Musician and
Artist Now Will be the Same Then.
THE HAMPToNs, July 31.-The Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage's sermon for this morn
ing was on the "Employments of
Heaven" and his text the 1st verse, chap
ter i. of Ezekiel: "Now it came to pass
in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month,
in the fifth day of the month, as was
among the captives by the river of Che
bar, that the heavens were opened
Ezekiel, with others, had been expatri-
ated, and while in foreign slavery was
standing on the banks of the royal canal
which he and other serfs had been con-
demned to dig by the order of Nebuchad-
nezzar-this royal canal, in the text
called the river of Chebar, the illustri-
GUS exile had visions of Heaven. In
deed, it is almost always so that the
brightest visions of Heaven come not to
those who are on mountain top of pros
peritv, but to some John on desolate
Patmos, or to some Paul in Mamertine
dungeon, or to some Ezekiel standing on
the banks of ditch he had been COM
PEELED to dig-yea, to the weary, to the
heart-broken, to those whom sorrow has
banished.
The text is very particular to give US
the exact time of the vision. 1t was in
the thirtieth year, and in the fourth
month, and in the fifth day of the month.
So you have had visions of earth you
shall never forget. You remember the
year, you remember the month, you re-
member the day, you remember the hour.
Why may not we have some such vision
this morning, and it be in the sixth month
and in the fourth day of the month?
The question is often silently asked.
though perhaps never audibly pro-
pounded: what are our departed Chris.
tian friends doing now?" The question
is more easily answered than you might
perhaps suppose. Though there has come
no recent intelligence from the heavenly
city, and we seem dependent upon the
story of eighteen centuries ago, still I
think we may from strongest inference
decide what are the present occupations
of our transferred kinsfolk.
After God has made nature he never
eradicates the chief characteristics of its
temperament. You never knew a man
phlegmatic in temperament to become
sanguine in temperament. You never
knew man sanguine in temperament to
become phlegmatic in temperament. Con-
version plants new principles in the soul,
but Paul and John are just as different
from each other after conversion as they
were different from each other before
conversion. If conversion does not Grad
Icate the prominent characteristics of the
temperament neither will death eradi-
cate them.
You have, then, only by sum in sub
traction and sum in addition to decide
what are the employments of your de-
parted friends in the better world. You
are to subtract from them all earthly
grossness and add all earthly goodness,
and then you are to come to the conclu-
sion that they are doing now in Heaven
what in their best moments they did on
earth. The reason that so many people |
never start for Heaven is because they
could not stand it if they got there if it |
should turn out to be the rigid and for |
NAL place some people photograph it.
We like to come to church, but we |
would not want to stay here to next |
Christmas. We like to hear the Halle
lujah Chorus, but we would not want to
hear it all the time for fifty centuries. 1t
might be on some great occasion it would
be possibly comfortable to wear crown
of gold weighing several pounds, but it
would be an affection to wear such a
crown forever. In other words, we run
the d. ptions of Heaven into the
ground while we make that which was
intended as especial and celebrative to
be the exclusive employment of the
Heaven. You might as well, if asked to
describe the habits of American society,
describe Decoration Day, or a Fourth
of July, or an autumnal Thanksgiving
as though it were all the time that way.
am not going to speculate in regard
to the future world, but must by inev-
table laws of inference and deduction
and common sense conclude that in
Heaven we will be just as different from
each other as we are now different, and
uCuSC Iudt tucIS Will ue DIT least as many .
different employments in the celestial
world as there are employments here.
Christ is to be the great love, the great
Joy, the great rapture, the great worship
IF Heaven; but will that abolish en-
oloyment2 No more than loves on earth {
-paternal, filial, fraternal, conjugal I
ove-abolish earthly occupation.
In the first place, remark that all
hose of our departed Christian friends !,
who on earth found great joy in the fine !.
srts are now indulging their tastes in the !,
'ame direction. On earth they had their :
yladdest pleasures amid pictures and stat
larry, and in the studNof the laws of light
md shade and perspective. Have you a
my idea that that aff1uence of faculty at v
leath collapsed and persisted? Why so, n
when there is more for them to look at, tt
nd they have keener appreciation of
he beautiful, and they stand amid the f,
cry looms where the sunsets and the s.
alnboWs and the spring mornings are a
woven? D
Are you so obtuse as to suppose that c.
ecause the painter drops his easel and II
be sculptor his chisel and the engraver il
is knife, that therefore that taste, which Il
a nr,1o |